When Friends Stop Being Frank And Useful

To Choose A Writer For A Friend Is Like Palling Around With Your Cardiologist, Who Might Be Musing As You Talk To Him That You Are A Sinking Man. A Writer's Love For Another Writer Is Never Quite Free Of Malice. He May Enjoy Discussing Your Failures Even More Than You Do. He Probably Sees You As Tragic, Like His Characters - Or Unworthy Of Tragedy, Which Is Worse.

An Aphorism Is A Generalization Of Sorts, And Our Present-day Writers Seem More At Home With The Particular.

In An Age Like Ours, Which Is Not Given To Letter-writing, We Forget What An Important Part It Used To Play In People's Lives.

We Don't Simply Read Books. We Become Them.

Sometimes It Seems That We Might Have Been Happier If We Had Once Had An Aristocracy To Blame Everything On.